Kingdom Hearts (game)
Kingdom Hearts (キングダム ハーツ, Kingudamu Hātsu) is an action role-playing game developed and published by Square Soft (now Square Enix) in 2002 for the PlayStation 2 video game console. The first game in the Kingdom Hearts series, it is the result of a collaboration between Square Enix and The Walt Disney Company. The game combines characters and settings from Disney animated features with those from Square's Final Fantasy series. The story follows a young boy, Sora, as he is thrown into an epic battle against the forces of darkness. He is joined by Donald Duck and Goofy, classic Disney characters who help him on his quest. Kingdom Hearts was a departure from Square's standard role-playing games, introducing a substantial action-adventure element to the gameplay. In addition, it has an all-star voice cast which includes many of the Disney characters' official voice actors. Kingdom Hearts was longtime Square character designer Tetsuya Nomura's first time in a directorial position. The game was praised for its unusual combination of action and role-playing, as well as its unexpectedly harmonious mix of Square and Disney motifs. It received numerous year-end "Best" video game awards, was a dominating presence in the 2002 holiday season, and went on to achieve Sony "Greatest Hits" status. Story The game begins with the main protagonist waking up in a mysterious world, called Awakening. A voice tells Sora to choose his strength and weakness with his three choices being Strength, Defense, and Magic. These are represented by three items: a sword, a shield, and a staff. The player as Sora also has to reveal their personality. Sora travels throughout the Awakening, which acts as a tutorial level. Once reaching the end, Sora faces a gigantic creature of darkness, called Darkside. After slaying the boss, Sora is consumed by darkness. Sora wakes up on the shore of Destiny Islands to find out that it was all a dream, though it different from a regular dream. Sora then attempts to lay his head back down when he is startled by Kairi. Riku, after talking with Kairi for a few minutes, shows up and they eventually all race. They later concoct a plan to leave the island in search of different worlds. The trio decide to build a raft in order to achieve their goal. After two days of collecting supplies for the trip, they decide to all go home on the main island for the night. However Sora, while in bed, sees the a storm and fears that their raft will be destroyed. Once Sora reaches the island with the raft, he discovers the presence of Kairi's and Riku's boats. He also discovers the island is overrun with numerous shadow-like creatures. Eventually, Sora finds Riku who has given in to the darkness due to obsession of leaving the islands. Riku offers Sora to join him, but immediately Riku is covered with darkness. Sora tries to grab Riku's hand, but fails to the darkness completely surrounding Riku. After Riku disappears, Sora gains the mysterious Keyblade. Sora then searches for Kairi, finding her in the Secret Place. As she turns around the strange door from the Secret Place opens, which sends out a huge gust of wind. This causes Kairi to fly and goes right through Sora. Sora is flung out into what remains of the world and faces another Darkside. After successfully defeating the creature again, they are sucked into a Corridor of Darkness. Sora awakes and finds himself in Traverse Town where he meets Donald Duck, Goofy, and numerous other major characters. They all learn about the beings of darkness, called Heartless, and the Keyholes of each world which the Heartless seek. Together Sora, Donald, and Goofy go on an adventure to restore the balance of the worlds and find Sora's friends. Category:Games released in 2002 Category:Games that are rated E Category:Games released on the PlayStation 2 Category:Kingdom Hearts series Category:Games by Square Enix